History

Auch is a very ancient town, whose settlement was noted by the Romans during their conquest of the area in the . At that time, it was settled by an Aquitanian tribe known to the Romans as the Ausci. Their name for the town was Climberrum or Elimberris. This has been tentatively etymologized from the Iberianiltir ("town, oppidum") and a cognate of the Basqueberri ("new"), although another Iberian settlement in Granada recorded by the Romans as "Iliberi" probably had no contact with proto-Basque speaking peoples. Following their conquest, the Romans renamed the town Augusta Auscorum or Ausciorum ("Augusta of the Ausci"). Augusta Auscorum was one of the twelve civitates of the province of Novempopulana (Gascony) and became the provincial capital after the 409 destruction of Eauze by the Vandals.

The common term Augusta was eventually dropped and the name evolved into the modern GasconAush and FrenchAuch.